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Alan Lomax (1915–2002) began working for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1936, first as a special and temporary assistant, then as the permanent Assistant in Charge, starting in June 1937, until he left in late 1942. He recorded such important musicians as Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters, Aunt Molly Jackson, and Jelly Roll Morton. A reading and examination of his letters from 1935 to 1945 reveal someone who led an extremely complex, fascinating, and creative life, mostly as a public employee. While Lomax is noted for his field recordings, these collected letters, many signed “Alan Lomax, Assistant in Charge,” are a trove of information until now available only at the Library of Congress. They make it clear that Lomax was very interested in the commercial hillbilly, race, and even popular recordings of the 1920s and after. These letters serve as a way of understanding Lomax’s public and private life during some of his most productive and significant years. Lomax was one of the most stimulating and influential cultural workers of the twentieth century. Here he speaks for himself through his voluminous correspondence.
With a theatrical career spanning nearly 100 years, Gish saw motion pictures evolve from flickers to blockbusters. Usually playing someone needing to be rescued or protected, her trademark delicacy and vulnerability belied a strong and complex woman whose fatherless childhood taught her frugality, love for her mother and her sister, Dorothy, and a distrust of men. The author, who was her friend, chronicles the hardships, heartaches, and fierce determination that shaped her all her days. With rare photographs and intimate recollections of Lillian, Dorothy, and many other important figures.
From Sean Connery to Roy Rogers, from comedy to political satire, films that include espionage as a plot device run the gamut of actors and styles. More than just “spy movies,” espionage films have evolved over the history of cinema and American culture, from stereotypical foreign spy themes, to patriotic star features, to the Cold War plotlines of the sixties, and most recently to the sexy, slick films of the nineties. This filmography comprehensively catalogs movies involving elements of espionage. Each entry includes release date, running time, alternate titles, cast and crew, a brief synopsis, and commentary. An introduction analyzes the development of these films and their reflection of the changing culture that spawned them.
In the early years of his performing career, Will Rogers was a vaudeville performer of limited prominence. Around the age of thirty-five, however, this Oklahoma cowboy philosopher shed his role as local stage entertainer and moved toward fame as a Broadway star and nationally beloved humorist. This documentary history, volume four in the definitive five-volume Papers of Will Rogers, reveals Rogers’s personal and professional transformation during what may have been the most productive period of his diverse career. Between 1915 and 1928—the years covered by this volume—Rogers developed his unique monologues of topical humor, sampled the relatively new medium of radio, and pursued a care...
At least three of director Jacques Tourneur’s films—Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man—are recognized as horror classics. Yet his contributions to these films are often minimized by scholars, with most of the credit going to the films’ producer, Val Lewton. A detailed examination of the director’s full body of work reveals that those elements most evident in the Tourneur-Lewton collaborations—the lack of monsters and the stylized use of suggested violence—are equally apparent in Tourneur’s films before and after his work with Lewton. Mystery and sensuality were hallmarks of his style, and he possessed a highly artistic visual and aural style. This insightful critical study examines each of Tourneur’s films, as well as his extensive work on MGM shorts (1936–1942) and in television. What emerges is evidence of a highly coherent directorial style that runs throughout Tourneur’s works.
By reprinting over 400 items from contemporary newspapers, magazines, and trade journals, this book reveals Taylor's life in Hollywood—from his arrival as a minor actor in 1912 until his death in 1922 as one of Hollywood's top directors.
Fatty Arbuckle's career came to a sudden halt amidst allegations that he raped and caused the death of a young starlet named Virginia Rappe. Though he was acquitted, the comedian, who was at one time second in popularity only to Charlie Chaplin, was ruined. Interviews with many of Arbuckle's contemporaries (including Minta Durfee, his first wife) and extensive research inform this serious study of the once-fabled comedian. His early days in the Keystone comedies and his relationship with Chaplin are recounted. The details of the Rappe trial and his life afterwards are also provided.
The winner of four Academy Awards for directing, John Ford is considered by many to be America’s greatest native-born director. Ford helmed some of the most memorable films in American cinema, including The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man, as well as such iconic westerns as Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In The John Ford Encyclopedia, Sue Matheson provides readers with detailed information about the acclaimed director’s films from the silent era to the 1960s. In more than 400 entries, this volume covers not only the films Ford directed and produced but also the studios for which...
Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART I: THE PERSISTENCE OF EMPIRE: COLONIALIST FILMS IN THE DECOLONIZATION ERA -- 1 The White Woman's Burden -- 2 Heroes of Empire -- 3 Westerns -- PART II: COMING TO TERMS: CONFRONTING INSURGENCY AND DECOLONIZATION -- 4 The British Empire and Decolonization -- 5 The French Empire and Decolonization -- 6 Americans in Postwar Asia -- PART III: DANGEROUS LIAISONS: INTERRACIAL COUPLES IN FILMS -- 7 Miscegenation in Westerns -- 8 Romance across the Pacific -- 9 Black-White Couples and Internal Decolonization -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: Attitudes toward Indians and U.S. Conquest in Westerns -- Appendix B: Outcomes of Interracial Romance in Miscegenation Films -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Z.